Paul Goble
Staunton, April 22 – In Soviet times, every government agency and public institution had an office responsible for monitoring the attitudes of workers, advancing the regime’s ideological agenda, and passing on promotions. That was disbanded with the end of the USSR, but now the Putin regime is moving to restore it.
According to three sources close to the Kremlin, Kommersant reports, the Presidential Administration now wants to introduce in all federal ministries, agencies and state companies deputy heads for information-political work who will be responsible for all the things the CPSU party organizations were before 1991 (kommersant.ru/doc/5326305).
Plans to do so began to be developed last year and some institutions have taken steps in this direction, but the war in Ukraine has made this step more important. One source speaking anonymously told the paper that it isn’t that the people are against the government, only that the government isn’t working with them enough.
For the moment at least, the Kremlin wants these positions to be created without adding new people. Thus, the responsibilities in this area are to be assigned to someone already employed. But the likelihood is that such an ideological control system will take on a life of its own and add employees in the future, thus further expanding the bureaucracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment